Deuteronomy 31:8

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 31:8







Friday, December 16, 2011

Camp GLOW

GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World and is a Peace Corps run program around the world. We as volunteers put together a weeklong camp for 2 girls from each of our villages and then invite one female teacher to attend as well. In Peace Corps Zambia we have these camps run in each province and because northern province is so big we have 3 different camps based on district (e.g. Mpika, Mbala, and Kasama).

From 5 December to 9 December we had our Kasama Camp GLOW at a facility about 10km outside of Kasama town. We had 8 Peace Corps Volunteers, 16 girls aged 13-19, 7 teachers, and 3 Zambian counterparts from Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ). Throughout the week we had sessions lead by our counterparts from PPAZ on topics like confidence and motivation, assertiveness, sugar daddies, peer pressure and boyfriends. These sessions provided skills for the girls to take back to the village so that they can empower other girls and women in their communities. We also had arts and crafts time where the girls made things like tye-dye t shirts, decorating journals, and making washable menstrual pads using local citenge fabric and towels. Then we also had a time for sports where we did activities like bowling using empty plastic bottles, knock out, and a relay race. At the end of the week the teams were awarded homemade medals for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place as well as a team spirit award.

Another thing that my district did was assign 4 girls to 2 Peace Corps Volunteers in prides. We had 4 different prides (orange, green, yellow, and purple) and we met as a pride each day during tea break to discuss more about the sessions, answer questions, and just build a small family during the camp with other girls that aren’t from your village. We chose to name them prides for two different reasons. One was to teach the girls about what it means to be proud of yourself and the other because lions live in a group called a pride and in that pride they take care of one another and we hoped that over the week each pride of girls would look out for one another. These prides also competed against each other in sports throughout the week.

I was with the green pride. We named ourselves the green giants and had a great time during the week. I am proud to report that my green giants dominated in sports and therefore took 1st place and walked away with the gold medal for the week! It was so much fun cheering on my girls Mercy, Deophister, Lydia, and Sheila as they competed. I felt like such a proud mom 

Now when in January once the schools open again I hope to work with my two girls I brought, Alice and Auxilla, and the teacher to start a girls club that will meet once weekly and do the same things that we did at camp.

Here’s to hoping that it goes as well as the club!

1st December…WORLD AIDS DAY

Every 1st of December marks the celebration of World AIDS Day. Last year on this day I went to my Peace Corps neighbors village which was having a big district wide celebration, but this year I decided to bring the party to Misengo.

Overall I think that things went pretty well. We were supposed to start at 8am with a march, but because this I live on Zambian time we didn’t start until after 10am. We then assembled the students and began our march through the “village center.” I had hoped we would sing a song, but instead we just had the group of older girls in the front yell “FIRST DECEMBER” followed by everyone else yelling “WORLD AIDS DAY”. In theory it sounds like a good idea but my bet is that almost all of the pupils who were yelling world AIDS Day had no idea what they were actually saying!

After our march we returned to the school and had our main program that featured speeches by the headman of the village, clinic nurse, and deputy head teacher. I thought these speeches were really good because they really emphasized how important it is to be safe during sex by practicing the ABC’s (which stands for abstinence, being faithful, and condom), and just they that should use the power to say NO and not to pressure other people. It was just good to have these messages coming from people who are leaders in the community.

My favorite portion of the day was the drama and poem section. Zambian LOVE role plays. I remember in school, or even my peace corps training, if you had to do a role play in front of the class chances are you felt embarrassed or pretended to because it wasn’t cool to be into it. Well in Zambia it is exactly the opposite! We had a drama created by the students about how having multiple partners can increase your chances of getting HIV and the best way to avoid is by abstaining from sex. And the poems here are not just read, they are read and danced to robot style. My favorite poem of the day went something like this:
“My name is Mulenga Charles, and I have a poem for you entitled AIDS. AIDS is a killer disease. Thank you.”
But just imagine it going to a beat and having the kid doing some arm motion as he was saying it. Hilarious!

We ended the day with some netball, girl’s soccer, and a soccer game between the grade 8 students and older people in the community. This is where the event took a little dip thanks to some of the older Zambians who were set to play in the soccer game. At first two of the men sent a teacher to come and ask me if they would be receiving a reward for playing. I said no and thought the subject was over. About 15 minutes later I see another teacher approaching me after having just left the two men and know what he is about to ask me. Before he opens his mouth I simply say, ‘no I will not be giving them a reward’ he laughs and then asks if I would be willing to give the two men money so that after the game they can buy beer. Well, naturally I get annoyed and instead of sending my reply back with the teacher I go direct to the men and tell them their request is unacceptable. This was a school event and to ask me to buy them beer for playing a simple game is just ridiculous, and if they refuse to play unless they get a reward then they can just go home now. I then went on to explain that I spend a lot of time and money arranging for the non-alcoholic traditional Zambian drink monkoyo to be made as well as over 250 scones so that should be reward enough for them. After that they stopped complaining and played the game.

So with the beer incident being the only damper overall it was a good day. I had hoped that people would be getting tested to know their status, but not many adults came which was disappointing. However, I think I will just look at this event as a opener to a VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) I am planning to have in May.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Turkey Day In Zam Land Round 2

Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I can't believe it is already thanksgiving yet again. And it is so strange to be at the Peace Corps house to celebrate with about 40 other volunteers and now being considered one of the old and vetern volunteers. It seems like just yesterday I was the newbie asking all sorts of questions!!

Life in the vill has been going well. It is caterpillar season again meaning that most of my neighbors spend every morning out in the bush collecting the caterpillars and then their afternoons squeezing out the insides and cooking them and preparing to sell them by the gallon. It is quite the long and smelly process I must say and I dont really enjoy the afternoons when the wind blows the smell directly into my house. Yuck!

I have also been busy preparing my house for the second season of rains. I have bought about 10 bundles of grass and I have had members of the Kumbi NHC around a couple times to put it on the house and stop the giant leaks that were coming in with even the slightest of rain. So far since the put it up I am happy to report my house remains dry :)

Right now I am once again in the preparing stages of some things. On 1 December is World AIDS Day and this year we are having a celebration in my village. It first started out as just going to be a graduation type ceremony for my soccer programs I have been meeting with since the end of September, but now it has turned into much more than that. The plan includes to start in the morning with a march (featuring a homemade banner) starting at the clinic, down through the shops, and to the soccer field, having some role plays, poems and songs performed by the students, a booth set up by the clinic, counsellers available to do HIV testing on anyone who is wanting to know their status (which we are hoping many will want to) and then a soccer tournament and a netball tournament for the girls. And as an incentive we will be having someone make scones and a zambian maize drink called munkoyo available at the end. So since I came to Kasama on Tuesday I have been running around and calling around buying things and in search of freebies from the district health office and other shops. I dont really know how it turned into such this big event, but here is to hoping it will all go well!!

Then a few days after I will be taking two grade 8 girls and one female teacher at my school to Camp GLOW, which is a weeklong girls empowement camp. We will be teaching the girls about many things including confidence and motivation, assertiveness, boyfriend and peer pressure, preventing pregnancy and HIV, and sugar daddies. We will also be doing a sport olympics kind of thing and arts and crafts. A lot of planning has been going into the week and I really think it will be a great experience and I am really looking forward to it.

So it is a busy and fun time for me lately!!! Once I finish the two big events I will make sure to put up an update of how it went and also some pictures.

Keep sending letters, emails, facebook messages and anything because I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from my friends and family back in the old US of A.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

PS ISHIKO

Well the 12 day nutrition project in Kumbi village has finished! We graduated 6 mothers after the 12 days were over.

Each day for 12 days these 6 maayos came together in Kumbi village (about 5km from my village) and we would cook an improved porridge to feed to their underweight children. Previously the kind of porridge they would make just consisted of mealie meal aka a carbohydrate so the kids were lacking food with a protein and vitamin/mineral source. This porridges I was teaching them to make included all three food groups. The combinations we made were:
1. kapenta(little dried fish similar to sardine, but much smaller) and veg
2. sweet potato and ground nut
3. soya bean and veg
4. pumpkin and groundnut

The favorite of the maayos was probably the sweet potato and groundnut porridge. Then after the cooking and feeding time I gave a health talk on numerous topics like family planning, malaria, nutrition, and hygeine.

I am glad I did the project, but I am also glad that it is done because it was a lot of work and a lot of time. Also many times I was left feeling frustrated because some days people wouldnt show up, or would be really late (like 1.5 hours), or I just doubted that any of it was even worth it. Were they really learning anything? Are they going to even adopt any of these behaviours when these 12 days are finished?

However, in the end the women who participated seemed to enjoy the program and I am happy to report we had weight gain from the children who attended daily. So it is a step in the right direction at least!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Return To Zambia

Well I've been back in Zambia for just about a month after being on a visit home for a few weeks. It's so strange to go home to America and feel like I never left and then to come back to Zambia and again feel like I never left. It's like a double life or something.

Since being back I've been preparing for some projects that are about to get started. One is the PS-Ishiko project, which is our version of the PD Hearth model. The program gets together between 6-10 underweight children with their caregivers for 12 days. Over the course of these 12 days the caregivers will learn how to cook nutritious foods for their kids such as porridge with a protein and veg source instead of just a carbohydrate as well as getting a daily health talk on topics ranging from HIV, malaria, to family planning. I will be starting it on Monday in Kumbi village, and then will hope to expand it to more villages if all goes well. So it'll be a busy 12 days for sure!

The second project I will be beginning is called Grass Roots Soccer (GRS) project. The program uses soccer to teach youth about HIV and other life skills. I haven't had much of an opportunity to do a ton of HIV work with the youth in my community so I am hoping this project will help to reach them.And the kids in my community LOVE soccer so I think they will really enjoy the program. So now I'm just getting last minute supplies together in order to get the project started. I have to conduct 2 sets of 11 sessions before the year comes to an end and then one more in the beginning of 2012 so it should keep me pretty busy.

Also I have a new addition to my hut in the form of an oven so now I can begin baking up a storm! So if you have any good recipes please feel free to send them my way :)

Saturday, June 25, 2011

AmericaLand

I'm coming back to America for a visit in less than a month and I have started compliling many lists of what I want to do, what I have to get done, what I want to buy and bring back with me, and most importantly what I want to eat. Here's my working list:

To Do (both want and need):
1. Weddings
2. Doctor, eye, dentist appointments
3. Go to the cabin
4. Drive my car...a lot.
5. Watch a new movie
6. Get my hair cut
7. Open house party

To Eat:
1. Chipotle
2. Steak
3. Pulled pork
4. Cheeseburger
5. Pizza (from Bulldogs and V.I.P)
6. Starbs (obvi)
7. French toast
8. Hotdog
9. BBQ sauce (I'll probably put it on anything)
10. Dr. Pepper

Well that's it for now but I expect it to continue. Less than one month!!!!

Friday, June 24, 2011

"How are you? I'm Fine!"

Well, I survived my first child health week and let me say it was a VERY busy week! 2 times per year (June and November/December) the ministry of health has a week dedicated to child health where the purpose is to weigh every child under 5 and provide Vitamin A, de-worming meds, and even measles vaccine to all the kids all for free. In my catchment area we covered our 10 zones over a 2-day period doing 5 zones per day. It was crazy to say the least but we made it through!

My main objective was to collect my data for all the kids age 6-60 months for my upcoming PS-Ishiko project. I had to collect the names of all the mothers and children, their weight and corresponding status (eg normal, mildly malnourished, severely malnourished), birth date, and then mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC). After all this data was collected I then calculated the overall nutrition status of each child and complied the statics for each zone. In each of my 10 zones there were HIGH rates of malnutrition totaling about 45-60% and normal children only being about 20%.

So the upcoming PS-Ishiko project will work to rehabilitate these malnourished children by having the mothers of the healthy children teach them healthy feeding behaviors. This will be done by holding daily sessions for 12 days where the mothers learn about a different health topic and then how to cook an improved porridge with the addition of a protein and vitamin source. The mothers will leave each day with a liter of this improved porridge to give their children throughout the day in addition to their regular meals. So the hope is that at the end of the 12 days the children will have gained weight and the mothers will have learned new behaviors to continue the weight gain and take their children to a healthy weight status. It's a lot of work, but the impact can also be really big as well.

The rest of my month has been spent doing work around my house. I am happy to report that after 8 months of being in my house I now have all my furniture! It was a big day when I finally placed the couch in my house and was a LONG time coming. I've also been working hard clearing the dry grasses from my yard to make it less inviting for snakes. So I purchased a slasher and then went to work and have finished with a blister to remember my hard work.

I also completed one of my goals of biking to Chishimba Falls, which is about 35km from my house. I set out one morning and made it in about 2 hours and was able to spend some time with some other volunteers swimming in the water before heading back. The ride back was much more difficult and took about 2.5 hours and for the next few days I was feeling that 70km!

So needless to say, June has been a busy month! Thanks for reading!

Friday, May 27, 2011

Life as of now....

I can't believe it's almost June and my one year mark of living in Zambia is so rapidly approaching. Time is flying!

Well things have been going along pretty smoothly here in the village and the rains have stopped meaning that my time spent cleaning up spills from my leaky grass roof is over. I'm happy to report I survived my first rainy season!!

Last week (May 16)I had my big womens event in my village. The event was all about soya and brought together my 8 womens groups, representatives from the district health office, and the Peace Corps Northern team. All in all the attendance totaled at 143 people! Each of the womens group created a soya dish (we had biscuits, chocolate cake, sausage, milk, and pancakes to name a few) and then presented it to our guests from Kasama. And because this was a Zambian event a dance party featuring drums and bamaayos busting a move was also ever present. Did yours truly join in the party and show her moves? Why of course I did...surprised? Shouldn't be. It was severely embarrassing because from the moment I joined in with the icitenge wrapped around my waist the screams from all 143 participants escalated to insane amounts. My boss from Peace Corps followed me filming the whole thing so keep your eyes tuned to YouTube for all the embarrassing footage. In the end though, the embarrassment I felt was worth it because my bamaayos were just so excited that I joined them.

The other big news I have is the latest addition to my Peace Corps family. This latest addition is Finn, a now 2 month old puppy. I named him Finn after my favorite character in Glee, Finn Hudson. Lunga, my cat, is coping with the adjustments as well is to be expected, and in time I am hoping they'll be the best of friends. I'll keep you posted on their friendship :) He's been a handful, but also really fun, especially when I throw my village kids into the mix. My favorite, Mutukangi, refuses to call him Finn because to him that doesn't sound like a name and instead calls him "Fen". He also likes to think he know has part custody of Finn and like to discipline him whenever possible. It's adorable and makes me love that kid more and more each day. In fact my whole village is aware of this bond and calls me banamutukangi which means mother to mutukangi. I like to wear this name with pride :)

Well I think that's about it for now!Thanks for reading!!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Giddy with animal fever

Greetings everyone :)
Well it's finally happened, I've seen a lion, zebra, and giraffe in Zambia. No worries they weren't in my backyard they were in South Luangwa National Park in Eastern province.
My fellow peace corps volunteer and I headed up to the park for a jam packed 4 day visit. In a word, it was incredible. Each morning we were woken up by 0530 and out on our morning drive. Then we'd return by 11, have lunch and then relax by the pool till 16 then go out for a night drive. Salley and I really loved the night drive because we'd stop some place to watch the sunset and then go in search of hunting lions and other nocturnal animals. Each night we came across the lions and watched as the walked by a mere one meter from our open top cruiser. It was slightly terrifying but so exciting! I hope to return again sometime in the future! And visitors are more than welcome to join me :)
Now it's back to work and it's going to be a busy time. Coming up I have a huge event with all my women's groups. We're inviting people from the district and provincial health offices, peace corps staff and local village leaders to showcase what the women have been learning about nutrition and cooking with soyabeans. The soya recipes have been distributed, the lunch budget has been set, and the invites have been sent out. All in all we're expecting about 200 people to be there. So pray it all goes smoothly! It's happening May 16 so it's coming up fast fast!!
Also in the works is the beginning of the PD Hearth program. This program teaches ten mothers at a time how to prepare and serve their malnourished child one supplemental meal over a 12 day period. At the end of the 12 days the child will have gained weight, approx 200 grams. And then as the mother continues this soon the child will be out of the danger zone. That's the plan anyways. So my first step will be to get all the weights and upper arm circumference of all the under 5 kids in my catchment area during Child Health week mid-June. I'll keep you updated on the progress for sure!
Thanks for reading everyone. Hope you all had a great Easter!

Monday, February 28, 2011

There's No Place Like Home

Today I returned to Kasama after being back at home in my village for a solid month...it's crazy how much of a shock it is to come back into the "big city" after being in the village for so long. I can't wait to see what it feels like to return to the really big city of Americaland in a few short months!

So since arriving back in Misengo on January 28 I have been keeping busy by attending A LOT of under 5 clinics. (And I'm happy to report I have now officially visited all the 11 villages within my catchment area). My job at these under 5 clinics was mostly to record the kg of each child on their card. I also thought it was important to learn about the child's height to get a real sense of their nutritional state so I went to Shoprite and bought a measuring tape and brought that along to the clinics as well. Now while I'm here in Kasama I'll make a stop at the district health office to see if they have a graph of some sort so I can plot out the points and visually see if the children are stunted in their growth due to malnutrition.

February is the biggest time of "hunger season" here in Zambia as well as a high time for malaria cases, which in turn meant that MANY of the kids were very under weight if not malnourished. It was tough to see that a 2 year old was only weighing about 7kg when he should be weighing around 12kg, especially when in many instances the problem isn't about a lack of food for the family it's about a lack of giving that food to the child. This 24 month old, named Mapalo which means blessing in Bemba, I learned from the mother was only being fed porridge twice a day! Porridge consists maize (corn) that is pounded into a flour like texture and then mixed with water. There is no protein, no vitamins in it so this child is lacking two major things that would allow him to grow. After discussing this with Mapalo's bamaayo and teaching her about how many times her son should be eating and what he should be eating I invited her to that village's next women's group meeting where we will be cooking bread, high protein nshima, and a soya and pumpkin leaves relish. So here's to hoping that she will come and in March little Mapalo will be a few kgs heavier!

Because it's planting season here around this time most of the people in my village are out in the fields all day and therefore I haven't had any regular group meetings. So when I wasn't busy with under 5 clinics I have been spending my time working on my "secondary project" which is teaching. It's pretty informal and very basic, but I'm helping some of the grade 9 students with Math and English skills. I go in the mornings with an assignment in each subject prepared and then we work through the problems together and then I give another of the same type and have them teach me how to solve the problem. I'm really having to brush up on my algebra skills again! The students I am working with are really motivated to learn and even more motivated to pass there exams in November and it's exciting for me each time they really understand the problem! In addition to working with the grade 9 students I'm also trying to start a preschool with some of the kids in my village ages 5-7 in math and English. Last Sunday I have 3 of my little boys over at my house and we practiced writing the numbers 1,2,3,4,and 5. My favorite little boy, Mutuka wrote the number 3 all by himself and then got a huge smile on his face and said, "ba Emily naishiba ukulemba 3!" (translation: Emily, I know how to write 3!)I felt like such a proud mom in that moment. I know that many of you are teachers or teachers in the making so if any of you have any tips or tricks that you can give me I would gladly accept them!!

The other big project that will now take up my time will be the issue of malaria. While in Lusaka for training we had a workshop on behavior change with our counterparts. The behavior change project we decided on was about malaria with our specific goal being that by January 1, 2012 there will be a decrease in the reported cases of malaria in Misengo by 50 percent. Malaria is a huge problem in my village and most of that is due to lack of mosquito nets as well as lack of education about ways to prevent mosquito from breeding. In fact we've been having around 3-4 children die each week due to malaria which is heartbreaking to see because it's both preventable and curable. I visited the health office today and talked with the malaria net distributor about when my village would be receiving our nets and he said it will begin next week, so let's hope that is indeed the case. Be praying for my villagers during this time!!!

Well I think that's about all for now. I appreciate all the letters and care packages I have been getting from you all back in America so THANK YOU times a million. Be praying for health, safety, and open hearts among the people of Misengo!!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Zanzi Vacay

Greetings from Paje, Zanzibar :) Otherwise known as paradise. I have been here since Christmas Eve and can't believe my time on this island is almost over in a few short days.

I met up with 5 other PCVs in Serenje, Zambia and we set off on our adventure by boarding the train for a 2.5 day adventure. This travel wasn't really all the pleasant due to many factors including lost reservations, which in turn led to us spending the first night in the booze car, poor toilet facilities, lack of sleep, unhelpful train staff, and extreme heat. However, the scenery once we crossed the boarder into Tanzania was beautiful and right before reaching Dar es Salaam we got to go through a game park and I was able to catch glimpses of giraffes, baboons, and some warthogs. It got me very excited for an upcoming safari I hope to take over Easter.

Following our arrival in Dar and taking a much needed shower and a good night's sleep we boarded the ferry to Stone Town the morning of Christmas Eve. It was a pleasant 2 hour trip crossing the bluest water I have ever seen. It was amazing!

So the first leg of our holiday was spent in Stone Town, which is the major town on the island. I was reminded to much of Italy while I walked around because it's an old city made up of small winding allyways with little shops tucked in every corner. My friend Salley and I spent much of our time helping the town's economy by shopping which is something that I haven't done in almost a half a year and I realized how much I enjoy a good day of retail therapy. Also in Stone Town we were able to go on a spice tour, which is a popular thing to do because Zanzibar has a history of being the spice island. We went to a plantation and got to sample various spices including cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, and also some fruits.

After a few nights in Stone Town we then headed up to the northern coast and spent some nights at Kendwa at a resort called Kendwa Rocks. The resort was beautiful and we stayed in beachside bungalows that looked like something out of a movie. I spent the first days just relaxing on the beach and working on my tan. One morning we also got to go kayaking on the Indian Ocean which led to quite the sunburn because you forget how close you actually are to the equator. Also on this beach I was able to take in 2 massages beachside which felt fantastic and erased any remaining traces of stress I had left in my body.

Next we headed to our second beach on the east coast in the town of Paje. This beach was a lot different and was less resort and more sporty. So the morning of New Years Eve we get up before sunrise and headed out to swim with some dolphins. We got onto the water by 6am and on our journey to find these dolphins we came across a giant turtle that had been speared by a hook and had died. So we hauled the turtle into our boat so our captain could enjoy it later as a meal.

The dolphin excursion was probably my favorite part of the trip thus far. We went out on the boat and when the dolphins were spotted our captain he would say "prepare to swim." These preparations included putting on flippers and goggles with snorkeling and then jumping over the side of the boat many times and chasing down the dolphins to see them swim underneath us. At one point there was approx 10 that swam underneath me. And as I prepared one time of my jump into othe ocean I got a little too excited and my flipper didn't quite make it over the edge and I fell backwards into the boat. This minor setback didn't hold me back though and I rushed up and made my second attempt at jumping into the water, which I am happy to report was successful.

Overall it's been a great trip and I can't believe it's almost over!!!


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